The last day of Pax East arrived and it felt like it had come and gone in the blink of an eye. I had met some good new friends and was re-acquainted with some old ones. The day began with a stop at Iceberg Interactive to see their game, Headsnatchers. The game plays like a large version of capture the flag with players that have removable heads. During gameplay, the levels dictate what you will need to do with the heads of your opponents.
One level played like a game of soccer where you needed to throw the head into the soccer goal and another level had you making soup. However one of the ingredients for the recipe was a head and your opponents luckily have heads for the taking. Before the start of the level, you can watch a brief tutorial on how the level is played so you can be a Headsnatchers master when it comes to certain levels. You have the option to select from all kinds of heads for your playable character. They range from animals and inanimate objects like TVs to pop culture icons like heads that look like Mighty Morphin Power Ranger heads.
There are at least 100 heads to choose from and if you don’t like those, you have the option to customize your own head! The game is playable with 2-4 players but is more fun with 4 because you never can tell what’s going to happen when you have more people playing. There is also the option of online and local multiplayer so you should always be able to find someone to play with. Stages have environmental hazards that you will need to be on guard for, such as a giant monster getting summoned to the field to deal with your enemies. There are also other traps that can be set on other fields so it will make you think of new strategies so you don’t get your head stolen easily.
During gameplay, I felt the controls could have been a little bit tighter as my character was stuck on the ground quite a few times and he wasn’t getting up. It was also tough to knock the opponents down and steal their heads for the exact same reason. Hopefully this will be resolved in the final build of the game. The weapons that you can pick up during gameplay were responsive and made things interesting because you never know how people are going to use them as well as how a game is going to turn out. Getting your hands on a weapon at the perfect time could be the way you win a match!
Being able to customize your character gives you that feeling of imagination and fun of saying this is my character and have fun at the same time. It would be interesting to see more games allow the players to create more like this to give them the feeling of “this is my character, fear him/her!” There are 4 gameplay modes to enjoy and Headsnatchers could be the new way to ruin friendships!